Dr. Thomas Haas' Blog Archive – October 2006
Tags: Non-surgical skin rejuvenation, Titan, non-surgical facelift, infrared light, Aesthera, sun damaged skin, broken capillaries, brown spots, Botox, Restylane,
Non-surgical skin rejuvenation is becoming increasingly popular. Imaage treats many patients daily with our state-of-the-art Titan and Aesthera machines. Anyone in their 30s, 40s or 50s knows that their skin is not getting any younger and they need to start taking a pro-active approach to maintaining and improving their complexion. It is very important that these treatments be performed by appropriately trained and experienced people. There is a worrisome trend of these potentially dangerous treatments being provided in shopping malls with no MD anywhere around.
Titan is a non-surgical facelift that uses infrared light to gently heat the collagen under the skin's surface. We have had this technology for almost 2 years and are seeing great results. Titan takes about 15-60 minutes per treatment and has no downtime. The best results are seen with a series of treatments. Titan does not give the dramatic lift seen with a facelift, but the recovery is very short and of course does not involve surgery.
Another new machine is the Aesthera. This gives truly painless hair removal. Aesthera also treats sun damaged skin, broken capillaries, brown spots, and redness. This machine has recently received FDA approval for acne treatment.
Combining these options with Botox and/or Restylane can help certain patients avoid or postpone surgical procedures.
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Tags: saline vs silicone implants, plastic surgeons,
I spend lots of time every day discussing saline vs silicone implants with patients. The more understanding the patient has of these choices, the better decision they can make.
Saline is salt water. Humans are about 60% salt water, so this is a very natural substance. Saline implants are pretty much unrestricted for use by plastic surgeons. If a saline implant leaks, the patient’s breast will eventually deflate and become flat, usually in a few days to weeks. They look good and generally have a natural feel, but do have an incidence of rippling that one can feel and sometimes see.
Silicone implants are filled with silicone gel. They are more restricted by the wisdom of our government. It can be difficult to tell if a silicone implant has leaked. The major advantage of silicone implants is that they feel better, and can look better compared to the occasional rippling with saline implants. Silicone implants are very popular in Europe, South America, and pretty much anywhere else except the US. The ‘gummi bear’ implants are still being studied and they will have advantages and disadvantages like everything else.
I really stress patient education. The above situation is one of the reasons I like to see patients at least twice before their surgery...this lets us get all questions and concerns addressed.
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Tags: Dr. 90210, Dr. Rey, plastic surgery, breast augmentation, implants,
I happened to catch a little of Dr. 90210 the other night. Besides the goofy way he has his scrubs tailored, I watched a very interesting exchange with the good doctor and his patient.
His patient was a young female getting a breast augmentation. She was in the pre-op area lying on a stretcher getting ready to be taken to the OR. Dr. Rey comes in and confirms that she has asked for a 560cc implant. He also says something about her 'being in the business'...which I took for her being a dancer or in the porn industry. The patient hugs her girlfriend goodbye and Dr. Rey goes away for a few minutes. He comes back carrying two boxes of implants and proceeds to tell the patient that there is a problem—he only has 500cc or 600cc implants so she has to tell him which one she wants. He leaves while the background music increases and the camera goes in for a close-up while she looks like a deer-in-the-headlights.
This whole scene is wrong in so many ways!
- If a patient has picked a certain size implant, why would you not have that implant available? I order 100 implants at a time. Dr. Rey must not do many breast augmentations or he would have pretty much all sizes available.
- It's crazy to tell a patient 10 minutes before you operate on her to pick a different implant size!! If anything goes wrong with her size, you'll have one unhappy lady!
- In my experience, dancers or women in the porn business are very breast-oriented. We all want as good a result as possible, but this group of patients often want perfection, which as we know is impossible. Again, having any patient change implant sizes a few minutes before surgery is not a good idea—especially in the dancer/porn population.
Of course this could all be scripted Hollywood bs.
Next time: silicone vs saline!
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Tags: mesotherapy, lipodissolve, liposuction, thread-lift, plastic surgery,
I've been reading and hearing about some new fat-removing injections. They go by various names like 'mesotherapy' and 'lipodissolve'. This involves multiple injections over multiple office visits into areas of fat. Most of the before/after photos I've seen are on the outside of the thighs (saddlebags) and the hip roll on someone's back.
I have seen a few results I would consider 'good', but for the most part, the 'after' pictures are pretty unimpressive. If I got these results with liposuction, the patients would be complaining justifiably. It also looks like these new injections are not that much cheaper than liposuction, and the injection process takes some weeks or months of visits that do have some discomfort...I am certainly not convinced that this will replace liposuction...it's got a long way to go before that happens.
Plastic surgery is commonly subjected to new technology and over-promised new techniques and equipment...laser this and that, ultrasound this and that. I'll discuss 'thread-lift' another time. Most of these new 'too good to be true' are, of course. What usually happens is after the hype dies down, these new ideas do find some limited role. We'll have to see if this happens with mesotherapy and lipodissolve. An old saying in this business is 'don't be the first guy to offer something, and don't be the last either'. I've been in business long enough, and been burned enough with unproven methods, to take a 'wait and see' attitude. If it's worth doing, I'll be doing it.
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